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“[F]ootball is losing its appeal. People realize it is a gladiator sport that pits young men in violent combat and leaves many of them gravely injured, just for our idle entertainment. Future generations will wonder how we were seduced into making this expensive spectacle a marketing tool for an educational institution. Football is both financially unsustainable and morally indefensible.”

A local letter writer in Fort Collins Colorado rails against Colorado State University’s decision to build a new football stadium. Yet UD wonders whether moral revulsion will really be what brings the college game down.

People seem to like watching hulks hurt each other. The younger the better.

I think it’s more likely that a simple, irreversible shift in techno-preferences will do the trick. The whole “being there” thing just isn’t working for people anymore. Showing up isn’t in the cards; watching at home while fiddling with social media is the new deal. With social media you create your own big viewing party, down your own liquor, avoid driving in heavy traffic and negotiating foul drunks and sitting on hard bleachers (while gazing up at the assholes in the luxury boxes) and enduring long vast shrieking ads on Adzillatrons, etc., etc. Nothing can compete with the capacity to control your own environment.

Margaret Soltan, December 22, 2014 4:02AM
Posted in: sport

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5 Responses to ““[F]ootball is losing its appeal. People realize it is a gladiator sport that pits young men in violent combat and leaves many of them gravely injured, just for our idle entertainment. Future generations will wonder how we were seduced into making this expensive spectacle a marketing tool for an educational institution. Football is both financially unsustainable and morally indefensible.””

  1. JND Says:

    “assholes in the luxury boxes”

    Several decades ago I got to sit in a box at Texas Stadium, courtesy of a vendor, and watch the Dallas Cowboys play. When I looked down at individuals in the crowd, it was obvious that was exactly what they thought of those of us in the boxes.

    On the other hand, sitting in a box while someone else pays for the parking, the tickets, the food, and the booze is a really good deal.

  2. Margaret Soltan Says:

    JND: It does sound like a good deal.

  3. dmf Says:

    as with climate change the only glimmers of reason seem to come from troubles with insurance coverage.

  4. Margaret Soltan Says:

    dmf: LOL.

  5. charlie Says:

    Just what do CSU students think of having their tuition jacked up in order to pay for this “gathering place?” Apparently, not much.

    http://www.collegian.com/2014/…of-student-poll-on-stadium/104989 Cached

    When polled, they said they would pay for a re-furbishing of the current stadium, but no to any new on campus monstrosity. Yeah, but, they’re only the proles who have to bear whatever burdens the Thought Police decide are appropriate. Appropriate being, the Wall Street money palaces that will underwrite and invest in the public bonds, and the construction magnates that will get the contracts, they’ll get richer. The students, they’ll have more debt that is rapidly becoming unlikely to ever be paid. Why would anyone attend a school that thinks this little of their undergrads?

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